1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to a system and method for facilitating the execution of law enforcement duties and enhancing anti-terrorism and counter-terrorism capabilities. More particularly, the invention relates to an electronic system and associated method that is adapted to facilitate the performance of law enforcement duties by quasi-instantaneously providing actionable intelligence to front-line law enforcement officers in response to a real-time query.
2. Background Description
The successful enforcement of local, state, and federal criminal statutes greatly rely upon the effectiveness with which law enforcement agencies carry out their mission to protect the public by preventing, investigating, and solving crimes and preventing terrorists attacks. The degree of effectiveness achieved by law enforcement in this endeavor is dependent upon numerous critical factors, one of the most critical being its ability to collect, document, analyze, disseminate, and utilize the massive amounts of criminal intelligence information developed by law enforcement daily. The events of Sep. 11, 2001, hastened the development of numerous data management systems and processes that succeeded in improving the quality and availability of criminal intelligence information; however, these systems have been typically designed to distribute information to selected groups of system users within a local or regional footprint. Of particular significance is the fact that these new and disparate systems failed to create a national data management system which quasi-instantaneously and in real-time provides (1) criminal intelligence information in an actionable form, (2) on a national scale, (3) to all law enforcement agencies, to include local, state, tribal, and federal; most notably the front-line officer. Consistent success in the modern criminal environment dominated by constantly changing and improving technology requires that law enforcement make more effective and efficient use of its criminal intelligence information; information that must not only be accurate, reliable, and accessible, but also be available in an actionable form to all law enforcement officers both quasi-instantaneously and directly.
Considering the complex and often unpredictable nature of crime, the execution of law enforcement duties is a difficult and dangerous task. Routinely during the course of their daily mission to fight crime, law enforcement officers must make expeditious decisions not only to ensure the safety of the public and the officers themselves, but also to ensure the preservation of evidence; decisions which necessarily must also strictly adhere to the rules of criminal procedure. One tool that would immediately and dramatically improve a law enforcement officer's ability to perform these duties more effectively and efficiently—all while increasing officer safety—would be direct, quasi-instantaneous access to a national criminal intelligence database containing reliable, concise, actionable intelligence about a particular subject, or suspected criminal property. In jurisdictions throughout the United States, valuable criminal intelligence information exists and, in many cases, is being maintained in some form of data or records management system; criminal intelligence information that in many circumstances would, if provided to front-line officers directly, quasi-instantaneously, and in an actionable form, provide them with sufficient information to satisfy the requisite legal standards to support a desired enforcement action. Unfortunately, as discussed above, the current data and records management systems and processes for collecting, storing, accessing, and distributing the aforementioned criminal intelligence information are not designed to provide this information in an actionable form to an officer in the field quasi-instantaneously, in real-time, on a national scale. Resultantly, these systems not only fail to make efficient use of the criminal intelligence information already developed and maintained by law enforcement, they also fail to effectively facilitate critically important law enforcement procedures commonly utilized by front-line officers such as investigative detentions, searches, and seizures.
Yet another deficiency of the current data and records management systems available to law enforcement are the limitations and inherent weaknesses of reports-based systems. The current systems create large, scalable databases comprised of law enforcement reports which are stored within these databases and can thereafter be searched in response to a law enforcement query. When matches are identified in a reports-based database, the querying user is presented with the opportunity to review the contents of any reports determined by the system to match the search criteria. A reports-based database system creates two significant problems when employed in the law enforcement environment which limit the capabilities and effectiveness of such systems, namely (1) the need for participating agencies to submit copies of their reports to these systems for viewing and potential use by other system participants and (2) the formation of a database containing too much information for the front-line officer to effectively analyze and use on-scene.
Concerning the first problem identified above, one of the primary concerns of a law enforcement agency considering whether to participate in a multi-agency reports-based database is its capability to maintain control of the use and dissemination of its agency reports and the information they contain. Such reports-based databases create serious information control and security issues for many agencies and therefore inspire a reluctance to contribute information to such systems. Security controls and protocols for reports-based systems can be designed to address this problem, but necessarily result in limiting access to the information and thereby diminishing the system's effectiveness. In some cases, agency policy or statutes governing the sharing of information with outside agencies may even prevent participation in such a system.
Concerning the second problem identified above, the use of a reports-based database by front-line officers necessitate an on-scene review of the reports contained in that database and a concurrent subjective analysis of that information. This review and analysis must be accomplished by those officers before the information the report(s) contains can be utilized. Because reports-based database systems contain all information detailed in the reports comprising such a database, they consequently contain too much information. Instead, what is needed is system and method designed to accomplish the sharing of only actionable criminal intelligence information, providing front-line officers with exactly the information they need to know about a given subject; information classified in such way that it doesn't require an officer to review one or more reports and draw a subjective conclusion about that subject, based on the information contained in the report(s), before proceeding with an investigation.
Current database and records management systems claim to provide actionable intelligence, but actually fall well short of that claim—providing a database full of reports is not the same as providing actionable intelligence. It is also important to note that actionable intelligence alone doesn't give an officer probable cause or reasonable suspicion, but it does serve to color his perception of the subject with whom or which he is dealing. Truly actionable intelligence enables officers to better articulate and support their actions and result in law enforcement conducting safer, better informed, better supported, and consequently, more effective investigations.
One of the most important law enforcement procedures available in the fight against crime is the seizure of criminal assets, also known as asset forfeiture. Asset forfeiture is the confiscation of assets, by local, state, and federal agencies which are either (1) the alleged proceeds of crime or (2) the alleged instrumentalities of crime. Criminal proceeds or profits refer to the money and/or property generated from criminal activity, whereas instrumentalities of crime refer to property that is used to facilitate the commission of a crime. Criminal proceeds and instrumentalities can be associated with a plethora of different crimes such as, but not limited to drug trafficking and terrorist activities.
There are two main types of forfeiture actions, namely criminal forfeiture actions and civil forfeiture actions. A criminal forfeiture action is an in personam action that is carried out in conjunction with the criminal prosecution of a defendant. In a criminal forfeiture action, the government is required to indict the property used or derived from the crime along with the defendant and is generally subject to the same “beyond a reasonable doubt” legal standard of proof that is required in criminal cases. In contrast, a civil forfeiture action is an in rem action that is carried out against the property being seized and the possessor of the property at the time of seizure—effectively a third party claimant. Initially, the government must have probable cause to seize the property and, thereafter, the possessor at the time of seizure, or the property's owner, may challenge the government's seizure. If the government demonstrates that the property is subject to forfeiture by a preponderance of the evidence in a subsequent judicial proceeding, the property can be forfeited. Because the burden of proof is substantially less in a civil forfeiture action, it is the type of forfeiture action that is most commonly favored by the government. Less than eighty percent (80%) of civil seizures are ever challenged in a legal proceeding.
In general, civil forfeiture can occur by means of one of the following three procedures: (1) summary forfeiture, (2) administrative forfeiture, or (3) judicial forfeiture. The property subject to a summary forfeiture proceeding is very limited in nature and normally involves a limited category of property specified under the Controlled Substances Act (“CSA”). In contrast, an administrative forfeiture proceeding can be commenced by a seizing agency against most property valued at $500,000 or less, as well as any amount of cash. The administrative action must be contested by the original owner in a timely manner or the original owner loses any legal claim to the property and the government acquires ownership thereof. A judicial forfeiture procedure occurs before a judge and is carried out in a manner analogous to that of a trial. If the value of the property exceeds $500,000, a claim of ownership is filed during an administrative procedure; if however, real property is involved, then a judicial forfeiture procedure is required.
All forms of asset forfeiture are very important mechanisms for combating crime in our society. The effective enforcement of asset forfeiture enactments directly attacks the economic basis of criminal enterprises, significantly diminishing their ability to profit from criminality and depleting the funds from their operations. Additionally, law enforcement agencies, many of which are desperately in need of economic resources, utilize the proceeds of asset forfeitures to hire additional police officers, fund overtime expenses, and to purchase vital equipment necessary to support their mission to prevent, investigate, solve and prosecute crime.
In order for asset forfeiture laws to be effectively utilized by today's law enforcement agencies, its front-line officers must have actionable intelligence, available to them quasi-instantaneously, so it can be utilized to produce or aid in the development of the probable cause required to seize criminal assets. As previously discussed, the systems currently in use by law enforcement are not capable of providing the criminal intelligence information they contain in an expeditious manner such that it can be consistently employed by front-line officers in the performance of their duties. Moreover, the current format of this criminal intelligence information is not actionable, further contributing to the dilution of its usefulness. Because the information contained in these systems is typically maintained in a format that is either of inadequate detail or too voluminous, a time consuming, subjective analysis of the information is often required before it can be considered actionable intelligence. As a consequence, valuable criminal intelligence information already collected, documented, and maintained by law enforcement is effectively unusable by the front-line officer for asset forfeiture investigations conducted in the field. This failure by law enforcement to maximize the use of available criminal intelligence information in support of its enforcement of existing asset forfeiture laws greatly diminishes the ability of the government to utilize these laws for their designed purpose—that being to facilitate the dismantling of criminal enterprises through the confiscation of criminal assets.
In recent years, asset forfeiture proceedings have become a very important countermeasure against terrorist activities. Terrorist organizations, like other criminal enterprises, require substantial economic resources to carry out their heinous acts of destruction. Successful asset forfeiture proceedings possess the ability to strip terrorist organizations of the economic resources they need to exist. In fact, the federal civil forfeiture statute (18 U.S.C. §981) specifically authorizes the forfeiture of terrorist assets. In particular, section 981(a)(1)(G) authorizes the forfeiture of all assets, whether foreign or domestic, (i) “of any individual, entity, or organization engaged in planning or perpetrating any act of domestic or international terrorism against the United States, citizens or residents of the United States, or their property, and all assets, foreign or domestic, affording any person a source of influence over any such entity or organization; (ii) acquired or maintained by any person with the intent and for the purpose of supporting, planning, conducting, or concealing an act of domestic or international terrorism against the United States, citizens or residents of the United States, or their property; or (iii) derived from, involved in, or used or intended to be used to commit any act of domestic or international terrorism against the United States, citizens or residents of the United States, or their property” (emphasis added).
In order for the above cited provisions of the federal civil forfeiture statute to be used effectively in counter-terrorism investigations, and in particular, the time-sensitive environment of law enforcement interdiction actions, front-line officers must be capable of accurately and expeditiously identifying suspected or confirmed terrorists or their aiders and abettors and promptly establishing the requisite probable cause to seize their assets and/or instrumentalities. To do this, the criminal intelligence information needed in support of these investigations must necessarily be nationally available and accessible in real-time, quasi-instantaneously, in an actionable format. Furthermore, this information must be provided preferably before, if not concurrently with the front-line officer engaging a subject or prior to that officer disengaging from the subject. Therefore, any criminal intelligence information intended to be used in support of such investigations must be concise, providing only the most critical details in an actionable format, directly and quasi-instantaneously to the front-line officer. As with other criminal investigations, the limitations of the current data and records management systems and processes make it difficult for the front-line law enforcement officer to acquire the actionable intelligence needed for seizing the assets and instrumentalities of a terrorist. Consequently, existing systems result in a less effective use of asset forfeiture laws against terrorist organizations and fail to strip them of the economic resources they use to fund their heinous acts.
Finally, to effectively combat the threat posed to the public by criminal activity, and more importantly, the danger posed to the United States and its citizens by terrorist organizations, today's law enforcement agencies need a national data and records management system capable of providing front-line law enforcement officers with mobile, direct, real-time, quasi-instantaneous access to, and delivery of, actionable intelligence in support of their investigative, asset forfeiture, officer safety, and public safety responsibilities. In addition, what is needed is one or more methods, carried out by such a system, which employ a set of classification criteria for subjects that specifically and concisely characterizes a subject's involvement in an unlawful activity. Such a system, and methods carried out thereby, would greatly facilitate the execution of law enforcement duties, particularly those of the front-line officers who are attempting to identify and seize the assets of criminals and terrorists.